Tata Motors holds talks with Karnataka for alternative Nano site

Tata Motors has held preliminary talks with the Karnataka government for a possible relocation of its main Nano plant from Singur in West Bengal, where work has been suspended since early this month on account of a protest led by the Trinamool Congress supporting unwilling land-losers to the project.

A team of top company officials led by Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant is in Bangalore to meet officials in the departments of finance, power, industry and infrastructure. Ravi Kant, who met Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa here today, said “We are considering various alternatives if required.”

Speaking to reporters after the state cabinet meet, Yeddyurappa said, "The Tata Motors issue came up for discussion in today's cabinet meet. If the company has any plans to relocate its Nano project, the state government is ready to offer any help in fulfiling it."

Last week, the West Bengal government had offered unwilling land losers a significantly improved deal that included land-for-land compensation mostly outside the 900-acre factory complex.

The Trinamool Congress said the offer was unacceptable — it has been demanding land-for-land compensation within the complex — and said it would resume its protests.

The Tata group has 900 acres of land in the Belur industrial area in Dharwad (north Karnataka), 430 km from Bangalore, where it has two projects — Telco Construction Equipment Company (Telcon), a joint venture with Hitachi of Japan, and a proposed car-manufacturing unit by Tata Motors.

Tata Motors is also setting up a greenfield project to manufacture buses under a joint venture with Marco Polo of Brazil. The facility is expected to begin commercial production next month.

Sources said although specifics were not discussed, the chief minister assured Kant that it could offer them 1,000 acres of land and match the incentives given by West Bengal or Uttarakhand.

Earlier, Tata Motors said it was exploring options of relocating the Nano plant either to Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, or to its plant in Pune, Maharashtra. The company has over 1,000 acres for a four-wheeler plant (650 acres for the plant and 350 acres for the vendor park).

Neither location, however, has enough surplus land to put up a unit to manufacture over 350,000 passenger cars a year. Finding fresh land in these areas would add to delays that already seem inevitable. The Nano was slated for an October launch. The original plan was to set up a mother plant at Singur and satellite plants in places like Pantnagar and Pune and one or two other locations where the car would be assembled.

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